Opportunities and Challenges for Soil Science to Address Climate Change.

Future climate change provides some unique challenges to sustaining soil resources.  As an example greater frequency of extreme events could impact plant cover thus soil erosion, soil C, and soil quality.  Soils also provide resilience to changing climate and mitigation of greenhouse gases.  Soil management can conserve water thus reducing the vulnerability of crop production systems to changing in precipitation patterns.  Soils have a great opportunity to help mitigate climate change by conserving the C and N in soil.  Some estimates that soil C sequestration can offset 10-15% of C emissions.  Reduction in N2O can provide additional offset benefits.  The challenge to soil science is how to accurately account for conservation of C and N, across spatial (laterally across landscapes and vertically), and temporal scales.  Another challenge is to link soil mitigation strategies to other environmental benefits, economic assessments and social behavior.  This will require trans-disciplinary research and education to accomplish the role of soil to address climate change.